Do You Love Nature? Or Do You Love Enjoying Nature?

Dodola Island, Maluku. This is a remote island with no population. Unfiltered.

I was MIA (missing in action) on my blog for few months. Well, I wasn't busy or anything, but I just need time to find a perfect topic for my blog. Quality over quantity. And today I'm going to talk about what I most concerned about.

When I scrolling through my Instagram, I found something that caught my attention. A photo of my friend when she traveled to some place beautiful in Indonesia. She loves traveling so much. I have many friends who travel a lot more than I do. I'm not saying that I'm jealous of them.

I also found a photo with an interesting caption, basically saying that people should travel to nature places more often. Especially when you live in Indonesia. Of course, I agree with that too. But, the irony is that people love nature just to enjoy it for themselves. They don't care what nature really needs.

They say people should travel more to nature, but they still use plastic bags, disposable cutlery, and sort of. They love nature but they left trash enough to make this land and sea very polluted. I feel sorry that those people are so blindly ignorant to something they say they love, 'nature'.

I have a relative that joined some kind of environment organization. That organization my relative joined has a purpose of growing more trees and building awareness to common people about how important it is our environment. But, my relative is still using plastics. I mean, seriously? You joined eco-organization but you still use plastics on daily basis?

I'm no better than anyone else. I have mistakes, but I always try to make fewer mistakes as I grow older. To be honest, I never throw my shopping bags from last year until now. As well as my plastic bags too. In fact, I have a pile of plastic bags in my room. And lately, I try to refuse any plastic bag or shopping bag when I go shopping. Instead, I always bring my own shopping bag. I also keep all my papers every time I got whether it's a material from a seminar, a workshop, of anywhere.

I try to reduce waste as much as possible. I have a friend at my office that it's okay to reprint everything after revisions, even just a little revision that actually won't matter. And he said, "Trees can grow easily, so why bother saving paper?" (I don't care if he read this)

I feel like I want to punch him in the face. Instead, I smile to him. Maybe it was a cynical smile. My signature smile for stupid people like that.

I don't need to travel a lot to nature to love this mother earth. By reducing plastics is enough for me. It's a little thing to do for me to contribute a better environment for everyone else.